[UA] Explain American laws to me

[Kevin Mowery]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick O'Duffy" <redfern at thehub.com.au>
To: <ua at lists.uchicago.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 1:30 AM
Subject: Re: [UA] Explain American laws to me


> Kevin Mowery wrote:
>
> > There are many floating casinos on lakes and in rivers between states.
> > Basically, what it amounts to is this, if I'm thinking straight: there's
no
> > federal law against gambling.  Most states have laws against gambling
> > (except for state-sponsored lotteries, which are just a gubmint-run
numbers
> > racket).
>
> We've had lotteries here for years, along with 'Instant Scratch-its' and
so on.

    We've had 'em for a while, too.  There's a long, long history of
lotteries in America . . . lemme see . . . since at least 1776 when the
Continental Congress held one to help pay expenses for that little
revolution thing.  Most of the proceeds disappeared into the pockets of the
lottery's organizers.

> This is interesting.  Las Vegas projects this image that America is
obsessed
> with gambling; but Australia seems to have a lot more gambling occuring.
It's a
> casual and accepted part of everyday life; almost everyone does it on same
> level.

    America has plenty of people who do their gambling at the gas station
buying scratch-and-win tickets.  But Vegas is a vacation spot and it
promotes binge gambling: I came here with $10,000 in the bank, and I'm
either going home broke or rich!

> > (Interestingly, prostitution is legal in most of Nevada, but
> > not in the county that Las Vegas is in and a couple of others.  Doesn't
mean
> > it's not there--it's there in spades--but it's illegal.)
>
> Wacky.

    Yep.  IIRC, brothels *do* advertise, too.  You can get into a cab and
find brochures.

> > If gambling is illegal, it's illegal anywhere.  That doesn't mean that
there
> > aren't sidewalk games of craps or backroom games of poker.  Heck, even
> > fantasy football pools are gambling.  But you don't hear about that
stuff
> > much anymore, although video poker games are routinely hauled out of
> > American Legion halls.
>
> What, so pokies _aren't_ legal outside of casinos?

    Not around these parts, anyway.  Pretty much any law at the state level
(except for things like murder or kidnapping) could be different the next
state over.

> > Bookmaking is illegal in most places, but you can bet on nearly anything
if
> > you're addicted to playing the odds.
>
> Are there local bookies, or do you have to call a bookie in Vegas to place
a
> bet?

    Oh, either.  Especially when you're dealing with an underworld-type
setting, the important thing to remember is that in any sufficiently large
and wealthy community, like, say, Columbus, Ohio, there will be someone
willing to provide just about any illegal service.  They don't advertise, so
of course you would have to be introduced to a bookie by someone else, but
they're there.  Most gambling, though, is done on the personal, between
buddies level.  It's still technically illegal, but what cop is going to
bust people in a bar for wagering five bucks on the hockey game?

    By the same token, there are prostitutes here in Columbus as well.  The
"escort services" still advertise in the phone book, but public outcry got
the local newspaper to stop accepting advertisements.  Because, you see,
they claim to only sell companionship, not sex.  Unless they're caught, that
story holds, but no one believes it.  Of course, some of the escort agencies
are, in fact, sting operations.

> > That's the crux of it.  In Las Vegas, I've heard that things like hotel
> > rooms and drinks and food can be had really cheaply because the casinos
know
> > what you're really there to do is throw your money at them at some
gaming
> > table.
>
> Yeah, I've heard that too.

As someone who doesn't like to gamble, I could probably have a great time in
Vegas.

> > Oops, I answered that one early.  Prostitution is legal in Nevada, but
three
> > of the counties (including the one Las Vegas is in) have outlawed it
anyway.
>
> What is a county, anyway?  Is it what we'd call a 'shire', a local
government
> body?  And what's the difference between a sheriff and a regular cop?

    Hm, okay.  At the top level, you have the federal government, below that
the states.  Each state is broken up into counties (except Lousiana, which
insists on using a different name for them just to confuse me).  Each county
has cities and towns and townships in it.

    At each level of government you have another police force.  At the top
is the FBI, which is very interested in organized crime as it often occurs
across state lines and violates all sorts of federal laws (like the RICO
Act).  Typically, the sheriff's office has jurisdiction over the entire
county.  City or township police forces have jurisdiction only in their
municipality.  To answer your question more directly: the sheriff is the top
cop for the county.  His subordinates are called deputy sheriffs.  In
cities, you've generally got a commissioner or a chief, then a mess of
captains,  lieutenants, sergeants, and officers.  Anyone of any rank can be
a detective as opposed to a patrolman, but it usually requires several years
of experience.  The higher up the ladder you go, the more likely that any
cop hasn't been on the street in a while.

    Another important thing: your average patrolman usually carries a
pistol, some mace, and a baton.  In a patrol car, there are often shotguns
in a locked rack.  Slightly heavier ordinance, including vests and helmets,
may be in the trunk.  When the feces really hit the fan, many if not most
big cities have a Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) team.  These are guys
who show up on the scene in what is essentially a battle wagon, equipped
with automatic weapons, body armor, etc.  These guys don't fool around--they
tend to be either very talented policemen or ex-military.  They have
snipers.  A few years ago, a guy was sitting in a folding chair in the
middle of the road with a pistol.  A SWAT sniper shot the pistol from his
hand.  It made the news and was very cool.  But the point is that players
who get too stupid *will* end up facing heavier firepower than they have.

    Usually things are taken care of at the most local level possible,
although the FBI garners few friends by "horning in" on local investigations
when they think federal laws have been broken.  In actuality, this probably
happens less often than it does in the movies, but no one likes having their
authority usurped by the pro from Dover.  There are many, many FBI offices
across the country (their website is at www.fbi.gov, and a good search
engine can usually find webpages for local law enforcement agencies, too).

> > Porn stars can even achieve mainstream success in spite
> > of (or because of) their pasts.  You'll probably never see a porn star
> > accepting an Oscar, but many have made mainstream films and television
> > appearances.
>
> Plus there's that whole porn-chic thing going on with some US bands, like
The
> Bloodhound Gang or Blink 182.  Puerile, but understandable.

    Absolutely.  Every few years porn becomes chic again.  Of course, porn
has its organized crime connections . . . it's a low investment, high return
form of filmmaking, many of the participants enjoy recreational drugs (often
for the recreation of allowing them to face another day in an industry that
will eat people alive), and it's a semi-criminal subculture.

> > Well, there's a joke in there about whores in Canberra, but some witty
> > Aussie probably beat me to it.
>
> A long, _long_ time ago.

    I figured.

> > I think that ignores some facts, but even as someone who
> > doesn't blaze up, I think the amount of attention given to a drug that
> > essentially makes you do nothing has been a bit ridiculous.
>
> A couple of cities have adopted a "don't care" attitude about marijuana
here.
> If the cops bust you smoking, they'll always let you off with a warning;
same if
> they find you in possession of a small stash.  They only get tough if
you're
> doing major dealing.  It's a common drug, as popular as alcohol among
younger
> demographics; many cops don;t think it's worth the effort to don anything
about
> it.

    In America, it's seen as pretty much one of the great evils (unless you
take into consideration all the great things pot does: it helps with
glaucoma, it keeps rebellious youth on the couch instead of outdoors
rebelling, it helps convenience stores (I don't know if you call them that
down there--in Ireland they're "news agents") stay in business, and in
theory the job market should open up with all those people vegging out and
watching TV).  Of course, a lot of the laws against pot and even industrial
grade hemp have to do less with protecting youth and more with the business
interests of millionaires.

> (And hey, I'm inclined to agree, even though I smoke only very
occasionally.)

    I've smoked a little, but didn't get much effect, and that was in high
school.  Not worth the risk now.

> > Dealers and users here have both been hit hard by mandatory sentencing
laws
> > and the "three strikes and you're out" rule, which basically means that
if
> > you commit three felonies, you get sent away for life.
>
> We have our own mandatory sentencing debate going on right now; it's the
reason
> why the UN is accusing us of human rights violations, and why our venomous
> little cunt of a Prime Minister is talking about severing UN ties.

    Yeah, I heard some of this on RPGnet.  Our death penalty (some states
have it, some don't, and I'm only certain about Ohio and Texas--both have
it) has garnered a lot of international criticism.  Essentially, blacks are
far more likely to end up on death row than whites for lesser crimes.  The
Supreme Court has acknowledged that there is racism involved, but that each
individual inmate would have to prove that his sentence was arrived at
because of racism.  This is, of course, almost impossible.

> > It is possible, with the right connections, to buy a cheap
> > gun on the street, but when I say cheap, I mean *cheap*.
>
> See, with the right connections here, you can buy a very expensive gun on
the
> street.  One guy I know told me he could get a pistol for me, but it'd
cost
> about $500, plus the cost of bullets.

    Oh, you can buy expensive guns, too, but there are places where you can
drive up to the right corner with money on your passenger seat and someone
will lean in and take the money and leave a .25 caliber piece of crap
pistol.  I let player-characters buy these things, because I can just rule
that on a botch the little bastard explodes.  A Changeling character lost
most of his hand that way.

    Expensive guns are harder to buy just because you need the right
connections and if no one has what you're looking for, too bad.  And, of
course, there's the possibility that you're walking into a sting operation.

    On the subject of sting operations, I don't know how it works in
Australia, but in America law enforcement agencies have to worry about
entrapment.  What it amounts to is that the cops can't entice or force
someone into a criminal act.  In a famous case, car manufacturer John
DeLorean ran into financial problems when his butt-ugly but way cool
gull-winged, stainless steel sportscar didn't sell.  He was contacted by a
friend who introduced him to a bank president who offered him a loan.  In
return for accepting the loan, he got threatened with death if he didn't
help with some drug deals.  He got busted.  Turns out everyone else involved
was working for the FBI.  They contacted him, set him up, and threatened him
with death to incriminate him.  He got acquitted, but the damage to his
reputation was done.

    Entrapment is often claimed in prostitution cases.  The basic idea is
that the "victim" only wanted to have sex until the cop offered to pay/be
paid for it.

    Another thing to consider when talking about law enforcement is the
issue of "racial profiling."  Officially, this *never* happens.  In point of
fact, it happens all the time.  Cops are always on the lookout for
minorities in nice neighborhoods or for too many black kids on a corner, or
whatever.  Blacks are around 12-15% of the population, but vastly
overrepresented in the prison system.  Some would say that this is because
cops patrol black neighborhoods more heavily.  The response to that is that
they *need* to be patrolled more heavily because they have more crime.  The
response to *that* is how would the cops know, since they're not in other
neighborhoods to see what goes on there.  It's a hideously endless debate,
but talking to people who have done ride-alongs in police cars I've found
one constant in their stories: minority=suspect.

    If you're planning on having a lot of cops in your game, I recommend
David Simon's _Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets_.  The book is
nonfiction set in Baltimore, which is far away from nearly everyplace you're
considering, but the principles of American policework are pretty much the
same everywhere, and if you use the Baltimore PD's organization in another
city, odds are no one in your game will ever question it.  Heck, I recommend
it even if you don't use the police a lot.  It's just a good sourcebook for
law enforcement.

> > I've heard tell of gun shows where
> > you can find submachineguns with no firing pins for sale and firing pins
for
> > sale for the submachinegun.  Whee!
>
> We've got some farmers and gunowners here who do the same thing.  Most of
these
> guys are... well, a bit loopy, frankly.  Like secede-from-the-country,
> form-a-militia, kick-out-all-the-Asians type loopy.  And many of them keep
> saying they have the right to bear arms, which they don't; such a thing is
_not_
> a Constitutional right here.

    The right to bear arms is a sticky situation here.  There are a lot of
people in the middle, some to each side but not to the death, then there are
the "no guns at all" people and the "you'll take my gun when the UN troops
in their black helicopters pull it from my cold, dead fingers" people.

    I make light, but there are a lot of reasonable and unreasonable people
on both sides of the issue.  The reasonable people have points.

> > Running gun battles are very rare.
>
> Except in RPGs, of course.  There they seem to be the standard...

    Well, yes.  Running gun battles are exciting.  In UA, they're a good way
to get real dead real fast.  In another similarity between real life and UA,
I remember the first edition of Cyberpunk pointing out that most actual
gunfights, according to the FBI, occur up close, like within 8 feet, and
even so missing is pretty common.

    Even your hardened criminals aren't sharpshooters.

> > You've got it right.  The Teamsters are a transport worker's union.  The
> > connection between the mob and unions is mostly stereotype, but in the
case
> > of the teamsters in particular it's got some history.  Basically, the
> > mobsters move in and get their guy elected head of the union through
bribery
> > and intimidation, or they just buy off the top guy.  Then they not only
> > control the industry to some extent, they have access to union funds.
> > Although I haven't seen it, "Hoffa" with Jack Nicholson probably sheds a
lot
> > of light on this.
>
> Even I've heard about Jimmy Hoffa; I'll check that one out.

    And it's hard to go wrong with Nicholson when he's actually acting,
IMHO.

> > > What is the 'Rico Act', and how does it relate to crime?
> >
> >     It's an anti-racketeering law.  Basically, it's a tool for use
against
> > organized crime that makes it illegal to conspire to influence someone
> > else's business for financial gain (again, law types will probably know
> > more).  It's most prominent use in recent years has been when the
government
> > started charging abortion protesters that blocked entry to abortion
clinics.
>
> Interesting interpretation...

    In essence, they're extorting the abortion clinics by threatening their
business in order to get them to change their practices.

> Thanks for all the help, Kevin.  You've been a boon to me thus far.

    I wish I could remember more from my criminal justice classes.

    Oh, other things that you may or may not know: Virtually no one gets off
on the Miranda defense.  It's big in movies, but rarer in real life.
Everyone has their rights read to them because no cop wants someone to get
off for something so stupid.  Those rights are "You have the right to remain
silent.  Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of
law.  You have the right to an attorney.  If you cannot afford and attorney,
one will be provided for you at no cost," and so forth.  Often, once a
person is brought in there is a form where they initial each right to say
that they have been informed and they understand it.

    When talking to cops, they are free to lie to you all they want in order
to extract a confession.  They are also allowed to make you think you are
about to get the crap beaten out of you, but they are not allowed to beat
you.  This doesn't mean you won't get beaten, and some cops are very good at
not leaving bruises (phone books are good for this).  But claims of police
brutality are hard to prove, and actual brutality is usually the exception
not the rule.  (Los Angeles and New York have had a lot of troubles in this
regard, though.)  As soon as you ask for a lawyer, the cops are supposed to
stop asking you questions.

    Many people dislike public defenders because they are typically
overworked and, let's face it, most of the people they defend are guilty.
It's hard to stay chipper in a job like that.  Most public defenders urge
their clients to just plead guilty.  For this they get a bad rap, but
studies have shown that most private defense attorneys will also advise
their clients to plead guilty--they just wait until their clients are out of
money first.  Most mobsters will, of course, not have public defenders.

Kevin Mowery_____________profbobo at io.com
Visit www.narbonic.com for the best online comic
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